Ķiršu dārzs / Вишневый сад

After several years of living in France, Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya returns to Russia with her seventeen-year-old daughter Anya, to her estate... which may soon be sold to pay off debts, since Ranevskaya has practically no money left. The merchant Lopakhin offers his own solution to the problem: cut down the cherry orchard, divide the land into plots and rent them out. But for Ranevskaya, this orchard is the embodiment of a past life and is full of precious memories, and she is not ready to part with it...

Konstantin Stanislavsky recalled that Anton Chekhov once announced that he had found a wonderful title for his play - "The Cherry-Tree Orchard". However, a week later, the playwright changed it to "The Cherry Orchard". “At first I didn’t even understand what was going on,” Stanislavsky wrote, “but Anton Pavlovich continued to savor the title of the play, emphasizing the tender sound of the word “Cherry,” as if trying to use it to caress the former beautiful, but now useless life that he was tearfully destroying in his play. This time, I understood the subtlety: “The Cherry-Tree Orchard” is a business, commercial orchard that brings in income. Such an orchard is needed even now. But “The Cherry Orchard” does not bring in income, it preserves in itself and in its blooming whiteness the poetry of the former aristocratic life. Such an orchard grows and blossoms for a whim, for the eyes of spoiled aesthetes. It’s a pity to destroy it, but it must be done…”

The production by Viesturs Kairišs is about the Russian intelligentsia that has been staying in Chekhov’s “cherry orchard” far too long and about the consequences of this phenomenon. The play is about the role of Russian culture, including pop culture, in the catastrophe of modern Russia and the responsibility of its representatives in the context of everything that is happening. “Chekhov is a treasure of the world culture,” the staging director comments, “and his play visionarily reflects the tragedy of modern Russia and Europe. This once again proves that art does not exist outside of politics.”